A27050:780
A treatise of episcopacy confuting by Scripture, reason, and the churches testimony that sort…
A treatise of episcopacy confuting by Scripture, reason, and the churches testimony that sort of diocesan churches, prelacy and government, which casteth out the primitive church-species, episcopacy, ministry and discipline and confoundeth the Christian world by corruption, usurpation, schism and persecution : meditated in the year 1640, when the et cætera oath was imposed : written 1671 and cast by : published 1680 by the importunity of our superiors, who demand the reasons of our nonconformity / by Richard Baxter.A treatise of episcopacy confuting by Scripture, reason, and the churches testimony that sort of diocesan churches, prelacy and government, which casteth out the primitive church-species, episcopacy, ministry and discipline and confoundeth the Christian world by corruption, usurpation, schism and persecution : meditated in the year 1640, when the et cætera oath was imposed : written 1671 and cast by : published 1680 by the importunity of our superiours, who demand the reasons of our nonconformity / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for Nevil Simmons, 1681
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
2. The, 2d. Reason, that ordination is an Act of Superiority. 1. Is granted; because the person to be ordained is yet no Minister of Christ, and therefore is Inferior to the Presbyters that ordain him, till he have received his office. 2. But that afterward the ordainer must be of an higher order (as well as greater antiquity in office) than him that is ordained by him, I deny: For than Bishops could not ordain Bishops; nor Arch-Bishops ordain Arch-Bishops: and who shall ordain the Patriarchs, or (if you be for him) the Pope? Have they all superiors to do it?
2. The, 2d. Reason, that ordination is an Act of Superiority. 1. Is granted; because the person to be ordained is yet no Minister of Christ, and therefore is Inferior to the Presbyters that ordain him, till he have received his office. 2. But that afterward the ordainer must be of an higher order (as well as greater antiquity in office) than him that is ordained by him, I deny: For than Bishops could not ordain Bishops; nor Arch-Bishops ordain Arch-Bishops: and who shall ordain the Patriarcks, or (if you be for him) the Pope? Have they all superiours to do it?
3. The third Reason from History I shall confute in due place: only here retorting it thus: In Scripture times no fixed Diocesan ever did ordain, therefore none such should now ordain.
2. But next let us distinguish, 1. Between ordaining to the Ministry in the Universal Church without affixing to a particular Charge, and the fixing of a Pastor in that particular Church. And, 2. Between ordaining a Bishop or Plenary Pastor, and a half Pastor called now a Presbyter.